A Civil Service accountant who downloaded and swapped repellent images of children being sexually abused and fantasised about abducting Madeleine McCann has been jailed for two years.

Jailing 31-year-old Barry James Shaw at Belfast Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch QC also ordered him to sign the police Sex Offenders’ Register for the rest of his life and barred him from ever working with children.

The judge told Shaw: “You may have felt at the time — in your room downloading these materials — that you caused no hurt to anyone, but for each of these appalling images there are victims, and if it were not for people like yourself there would be no demand for them, and the abuse that is inherent in the production of these materials would not occur.”

Shaw, from Balfour Avenue in south Belfast, pleaded guilty to 24 charges of making indecent images of children and a further four of distributing indecent images on dates between February 2006 and August 2009.

The charges cover a total of 4,630 images including 28 movie files and almost 1,000 images at the most heinous categories of four and five, which show sexual acts between adults and children as well as images of bestiality and sadomasochism.

It is the largest amount of category five images ever uncovered in a single UK investigation.

The photos and movie files were found on two computers when police raided the homes of Shaw and his parents, and it was also uncovered that he had distributed over 200 images.

Those examinations further revealed online chat logs where Shaw boasted about his sickening fantasies over the rape, murder and torture of babies and children. He also admitted to police to wishing he had snatched missing toddler Madeleine McCann, who was kidnapped in Praia de Luz in Portugal in 2007 when she was just three years old.

Judge Lynch said that a “serious aggravating factor” was that Shaw had not just downloaded the images for his own gratification, but had also distributed them.

Solicitor advocate Dennis Maloney said that Shaw was, is and remains “haunted” by what he did, adding that his arrest had come as a “relief”.

Judge Lynch also imposed a 15-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) prohibiting Shaw from owning or using any technology which did not have monitoring software installed, “undertaking any activity” whether paid or unpaid which would give him access to children, having unsupervised contact with children, going within 20 metres of any “child-centred facility” and from denying police access to his home to check that he is complying with the SOPO.

Mr Maloney told the court that Shaw would be “rigorously adhering to the conditions ... to the letter of the law”.